Sunday, January 20, 2013

I'm
writing to you to ask for a refund. Apologies in
advance for the length of this letter. Hopefully you won't roll your
eyes at this (I know how tiring long customer services letters must
be), but this is just to make you aware of the process I've been through to
try and get a refund.

My
mistake (and I fully admit it) was to arrive at the station with the
wrong debit card by accident. I know it was wrong, but I didn't think
it'd be that bad. After all, thetrainline allows you to use
“any
valid debit/credit card” to pick up a ticket. And, the Paddington
ticket machine seemed to agree with me. It said that, yes, wrong
card, but I could go to the ticket office to pick up the tickets.

After
queing at the ticket office, the man there sent me to the
Information Desk, saying the woman there could help me. Her response
was to inform me, in an exasperated sigh, that I shouldn't have been
sent to her, and that my best bet was to either contact First Great
Western to change the booking or buy a new ticket.

I
went back to the ticket office and had the good fortune to speak to
the same man. He offered to sell me a new ticket and suggested that I
contact First Great Western for a refund on my original ticket. “But
I am contacting First Great Western,” I said. “I'm talking to
you.”

At
this point the man in a First Great Western booth, wearing a First
Great Western uniform and a First Great Western badge, said proudly:
“I am not First Great Western.”

I'm
very proud of the fact that I did not at this point lose my temper. I
may have gaped, but I think that's reasonable. I bought a new ticket
and he went away and eventually came back with a phone number for me
to ring.

Sitting
on the train, I rang the number and spoke to a very helpful man who
told me he couldn't actually give me a refund, but how I could use my
laptop on the train to do it. This was partially true. What he did
not tell me was that my laptop needed to be connected to a printer.
Unaccountably, I had failed to pack my printer, so sadly, could not
print out the resulting PDF in order to mail to you.

Not
to worry, I thought. I'll do it when I get home. By the time I got
home, my session on your website had expired. When I logged back in,
it claimed “Aftersales Performed” on that journey, and wouldn't
let me print out the PDF.

So
I rang the helpline again. Perhaps someone there would tell me how to
get to the PDF. I explained my situation. Not a problem, the man
said, all I needed to do was to write you a letter and attach the
tickets.

I
then reminded him that I did not have the tickets. At which point he
suggested my best bet was to travel across London, back to the
station, with the correct debit card and collect the tickets.
Startled, I queried this. Not only did this seem a very laborious
process, but I also questioned whether a ticket machine would even
issue tickets for a journey now long in the past. He agreed that this
seemed unlikely.

He
came up with another solution. He suggested that I write this all
down in a letter to you and that, once I had explained my case, you
might send me a refund request form.

Stunned,
I asked him if, perhaps, you'd simply refund me after reading the
letter without the added complexity of then sending me a form, me
having to fill in a form and then send it back to you. He said he
rather doubted it.